Moving for a better world against inactivity and child obesity Across ten countries

Between 3 April to 2 May 2014, Technogym organised an innovative social campaign that called on facilities to ‘donate’ physical activity towards a good cause – that of getting local communities more active and promoting wellness education in local schools.

Over 21,000 people in 180 fitness clubs around the globe participated in the challenge, collecting more than 100 million ‘MOVEs’. A ‘MOVE’ is Technogym’s unit of measure for movement.. The facility with the most MOVEs in each country won the opportunity to donate a full set of Easy Line equipment, together with training for staff and a wellness seminar, to a local school of their choice.

How did it start?

Wellness is the ethos that drives Technogym forward and the company strongly believes that physical exercise is a powerful form of medicine that in turn leads to a happier and more balanced life. We are committed to working with our partners and customers in advancing the agenda for wellness and the ‘Let’s Move for a Better World campaign’ – powered by the Challenge app on Technogym’s mywellness cloud computing platform was the perfect opportunity to encourage better lifestyles at a grassroots level.

Objectives

The dangers of sedentary behavior have been well documented, with unhealthy lifestyles being a leading cause of premature deaths every year. The problem is compounded by the prevalence of childhood obesity: as of 2010, an estimated 42 million children under five are overweight, and overweight and obese children are likely to stay overweight in adulthood (World Health Organization).

Through our global network of customer sites, the Let’s Move for a Better World global challenge aimed to unite facilities and members for a common social cause of reducing inactivity. Linking exercise or MOVEs to the ability to give back to their communities would give people extra motivation to train, whilst building a tangible community within the gym facility that helped to increase the feel-good factor of working out.

Why is this project important?

The Let’s Move for a Better World directly linked physical activity and exercise with social good in a ground-breaking way.

It allowed exercisers to work with their gym for a chance to make a difference in their local community. The challenge motivated them to visit the gym more often and whilst there they tended to go further and exercise for longer than they normally would – thus creating healthier, more active habits for long-term lifestyle change.

As a direct result of the campaign, a school in each country was then given a boost against inactivity through education and the provision of easy-to-use and safe fitness equipment.

Project resources

The campaign was powered by the professional Challenge application on mywellness cloud, Technogym’s cloud computing platform, which allows operators to create, manage and organize digital gym challenges simply and easily. By logging in to each machine as they worked out, gym goers trained and collected MOVES automatically for their facility.

To win the prize, many facilities organised innovative initiatives such as DJ parties, late opening hours and giveaways, motivating existing members and attracting new ones in the process. Members shared their training progress with other facility members or with friends on social media, spurring each other on to further efforts.

Aside from our investment in the value of each prize – worth up to £20,000 – Technogym dedicated its teams of marketing and development specialists to create a full set of in-facility and digital collateral that promoted the campaign and taught members how to take part. We also promoted the initiative through a web campaign, centred on a dedicated microsite (www.technogym.com/letsmove) where users could find facilities taking part in the campaign. Participants’s posts – including pictures and videos – were captured on a social wall using the hashtag #Letsmoveforabetterworld, harnessing the power of social sharing to motivate.

Project results

More than 21,000 people from 180 facilities from ten countries – including Australia, Benelux, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the USA, Spain and Switzerland participated in the campaign, generating more than 100 million MOVEs in the effort to help their local schools.

Within the UK, 34 facilities took part in the Let’s Move for a Better World, gathering almost 10 million MOVEs between them. The USN Bolton Arena took the top spot with over 2.3 million MOVEs and decided to donate the equipment to Rivington and Blackrod High School in Bolton.

Gwyn Hughes, Commercial Manager at the USN Bolton Arena: “The challenge gave our gym team a focus over the past few weeks. And our members got very competitive with it! It was also a great opportunity to try out the Challenge App and we are now using it successfully to create our own member challenges.”

Mike Dupuis, Chief Operating Officer, Key Health Institute – Edmond, USA: “This has been the best ‘member engagement’ programme I have experienced in my 39 years in the industry. The residents of Oklahoma are very passionate about good causes and helping each other. Our staff were so proud and excited by this Challenge that it became easy for even our most timid employee to reach out to a member and ‘engage’ them! As the Challenge is nearing its end, we now have over 700 members upgraded. After we did that the media picked up on what we were doing and sent several news teams to record live remote feeds at our Technogym Centre. This in turn led to several local businesses seeing our news piece and calling us to inquire about our corporate wellness package. We signed up three companies immediately representing almost 1,000 employees.”

Daniel Koppelle, Fitness Manager, Wellness Centre Terbregge: “Over 588 people took part in the Let’s Move for a Better World Challenge and active visitors increased by 23%. Customers who joined the campaign could introduce new members for 2 weeks free training during the challenge. We were even able to further improve the results of our past challenges. In total we got 59 new guests, 30 of which are now members and 8 additional memberships will be likely secured in the coming days, for a total of 38 new yearly memberships.”

A full list of recipients, by country, is as follows:

Australia – St Helena Secondary College, Banyule

France – Faculté des Sciences du Sport d’Angoulème, La Couronne

Germany – Förderer der Pestalozzischule Raunheim e. V., Raunheim

Italy – I.C. STOPPANI “DON MILANI”, Seregno

Japan – Due to tough regulations around gifting to schools, Technogym instead worked with participating facilities to reward inspiring participants

Netherlands – Donation: EUR5,000 to Dutch Diabetes Foundation

Spain – Escuela Artatse en Bilbao, Bilbao

Switzerland – Heilpädagogische Schule Lyss, Lyss

United Kingdom – Rivington and Blackrod High School, Bolton

USA – Taft Middle School, Oklahoma City

Gymtopia Comment

A novel programme from Technogym that engaged members while also benefiting local schools and charitable organisations. Adding a sense of competition among clubs, both inside their own country and globally, was very clever.